How the Resurrection Restores Us: Interview with Derek Vreeland

Derek Vreeland, author of the Bible study Resurrection: 8 Lessons on How God Restores Us, shares his heart behind the study and how discipleship has impacted his life. 

What inspired you to write the Bible study, Resurrection: 8 Lessons on How God Restores Us? 

I’ve been a student of Eugene Peterson for well over 20 years. He has been a pastoral mentor to me through the way he lived and wrote. A couple of years ago, I chose The Message (Eugene Peterson’s modern translation) as my primary Bible for daily reading for a two-year Bible-reading plan. Spending time each day in The Message captured my imagination. Phrases and verses came alive to me in fresh ways, helping me see more clearly who God is and what God is doing.

As I began writing, I wanted to focus on the very heart of the gospel story: the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of the Son of God. Resurrection is the third study in that series. Jesus’ resurrection is essential to our faith, because the God we worship is not only the God of crucifixion, but also the God of resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus is the linchpin of our faith. Without His resurrection on the third day, His death would have been a failure. A crucified Messiah is a failed Messiah, unless God raises Him from the dead. Jesus was vindicated as the Father raised Him to life anew by the power of the Spirit. God saves and restores us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and in this, we rejoice.

Crucifixion and resurrection also serve as a paradigm for discipleship. If we faithfully follow Jesus, we must take up our cross and die to ourselves, but the goal is not death or the destruction of our sense of self. We die to self so that we can experience new life, so that our true selves can be remade in the image of God. Through baptism, we identify with Jesus in both crucifixion and resurrection.

Resurrection walks readers through eight key resurrection passages in The Message, helping us see how God restores us so we can live new Christlike lives in the very neighborhoods where we live, work, and play.

How have you personally experienced being restored through Christ? 

The most dramatic renewal I’ve experienced has been the Holy Spirit’s work in transforming my identity. Early in my Christian journey, I believed I was unworthy of love and acceptance. Experiencing the love of God — so clearly revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus — completely changed me. That love washed away deep insecurities and replaced them with a contentment that has sustained me all these years.

I don’t naturally possess strong empathic gifts like sensitivity or emotional intuition. A strange thing for a pastor to admit! Yet I have become more empathetic and deeply compassionate because of the Spirit’s work in my life. The Spirit has renewed my mind to recognize the value of every human life, regardless of socioeconomic status, physical ability, race, or religion. God has poured love into my heart, giving me a genuine and growing love for people. For that I’m grateful. 

Could you share about a disciplemaker who invested in your life? 

God has placed many men in my life over the years who have mentored and discipled me in the ways of Jesus. One in particular was my high school track coach, Coach Reynolds, who later became my English teacher during my senior year.

Coach taught me to love the Lord with my mind, to think and write as a Christian. At one point in high school, I was trying to get out of reading a book and writing a book report because the Lord’s name was taken in vain. Coach wouldn’t let me off the hook! He challenged me to read the book and write my book report from a Christian perspective. He was the first person who ever read something I wrote and told me I had something to say and should keep writing. He taught me the value of hard work and faithfulness in the face of doubt and skepticism.

When I moved back to my hometown after being away for 16 years, Coach and I reconnected. We began reading Christian books together and meeting regularly to discuss what we were learning. He continued to disciple me until his untimely death following complications from a stroke nearly nine years ago. I miss him deeply, but I know I am who I am today because he invested in me: first as a teenager, and later as an adult.

How is God encouraging your heart these days? 

My youngest son is a sophomore in high school and part of our church’s youth group, and he and his friends genuinely want to follow Jesus and grow in the Christian faith. I feel a deep responsibility to pass faith on to the next generation and to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in forming authentic disciples of Jesus. Seeing that happen among the young people in my church brings me great encouragement and hope for the future.

Derek Vreeland is the Discipleship Pastor at Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. He is the author of several books including the God in the Neighborhood Bible Studies, a three-book Bible study series: Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.